Gutenberg
by skippercollector
Summary: 15 months after the evacuation to Mexico, a group of 13 survivors, led by Sam and J.D., are leaving Mexico to start over at a new home, at J.D.'s uncle's ranch. But none of them know about living off the land. They will have to learn to survive.
1. A Map of Oklahoma

A Map of Oklahoma

He was tired of refugee camp life.

Actually, "tired" wasn't the proper word. "Exhausted" was more like it. He'd been living in a barracks with other single men outside Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, south of Texas, for 15 months. The place smelled, he was never not hungry and never completely clean, and heartbreakingly lonely. He had never learned the fates of his father, Julian Devereaux White, and his stepmother, Cindy. His parents had been skiing in Europe when the super winter storms hit, and they were presumed lost. His little brother Benjamin and Benny's hundred or so schoolmates outside Philadelphia had frozen to death during the storms, their buses never even reaching the state line.

Many Americans had abandoned the refugee camps in Mexico already, trying to return to their homes, or what was left of them, or to find new places to live. Even the US President, Raymond Becker, and his cabinet were leaving the American Embassy in Mexico City to return to the States.

Yet 19-year-old J.D. White had no place to return to. J.D. had been "adopted" by the Hall family, formerly of Washington D.C., and spent much time with them, for which he was grateful. But the Halls were following President Becker to the new American capital, Houston, Texas, since Professor Jack Hall was now officially a member of Becker's cabinet, as the Secretary of Climatology. However, J.D. didn't want to just be an extra mouth to feed in the Hall family, although they had asked him if he wanted to follow them.

J.D. had become an extended member of the Hall family. Actually, Jack and his wife, Dr. Lucy Hall, had "adopted" four young people following the exodus into Mexico: their son Sam's new wife Laura Chapman, Sam's longtime friend Brian Parks, Lucy's pediatric cancer patient Peter Upshaw, and J.D. Like J.D., Brian, Laura and Peter were presumably orphaned by the great ice storms, as no one had ever been able to locate their parents. J.D. would never forget the night a year earlier when he had at last begun to face the fact that he was alone, and he had sobbed sadly and bitterly on Lucy's shoulder.

The young man wasn't sure he wanted to be dependent on the Halls anymore. He had an idea in the back of his head to where he might move, but he hadn't said anything to anyone because he wasn't even sure the place existed anymore. It wasn't anywhere near his hometown of New York City, even though he knew of other refugees who had returned to the Northeast in an attempt to scrounge out a living on the new tundra that was formerly the United States.

What J.D. didn't realize was that newlyweds Sam and Laura didn't want to move to Houston either, because they, like J.D., didn't want to be living on Sam's parents coattails, under their overly protective eyes.

Laura and Sam were part of the new American "elite" class--that is, Americans who were living in actual buildings in Nuevo Laredo rather than tents or barracks or their vehicles. The only reason they had that privilege was because of Sam's father's cabinet status. Laura and Sam both felt guilty about the easier lifestyle they were living compared to most everyone else they knew.

Although Sam's parents lived in Mexico City near President Becker, when Sam and Laura and the other survivors from New York had been brought to Mexico, the helicopters had landed in Nuevo Laredo, just across the Rio Grande from Texas. The two had decided to stay there, much to Sam's parents' dismay. Laura felt a responsibility towards some of the others in their little party, and she didn't want to abandon them. Sam and Laura eventually did visit Mexico City, where they were married. But they decided they didn't care to live there.

"When are you going to tell your parents we don't want to go to Houston?" Laura asked Sam in their small room.

"As soon as we figure out just where we WILL be going," Sam answered. "I think they'll be more receptive to the idea if we can give them a concrete answer. I just wish I knew what that might be."

"I talked to Elsa the other day," Laura said. "She and Jeremy don't want to have their baby here either. If a group of us left together your mom and dad might not get so upset."

"Where do Jeremy and Elsa want to go?"

"Elsa's got relatives from Tennessee, you know. They're making plans to head back there now that it's spring and more and more of the ice is receding. Memphis is on the southern edge of the glaciers now."

Sam shook his head but didn't respond. He wasn't sure that idea was feasible. Just because the snow was melting didn't mean any danger from the new Ice Age was past. Most of the buildings north of the 36th Parallel were buried under two or three stories of ice and snow. There was extreme danger of flooding during the summer; naturally the growing season was two months shorter now; and most of the Northern Hemisphere's herd animals had frozen or starved to death.

Sam had been talking to others in the refugee camps for weeks. Everyone was exhausted; everyone wanted to go home. The Americans' initial relief at just being alive had turned into numbness, then irritation. Only a few were angry--yet--but that emotion was sure to surface soon. President Becker was already being questioned by various factions wondering both why the new Ice Age had happened and what could be done to correct it. Sam, the climatologist's son, understood that another sudden change in the weather wasn't possible at the moment, but he was tired of explaining that to strangers who kept coming up to him demanding why nothing was being done.

"Did you want to go to movie night?" Laura asked, changing the subject. Movie night was now a big deal in the camp. A surprising number of refugees had either packed their favorite films when they fled their homes, while other families already had had a stash of DVDs in their TV-equipped SUVs. That night's film was to be the 1956 Elizabeth Taylor/James Dean epic "Giant," brought to Mexico by a diehard James Dean fan. Laura had never seen the movie, and thought it sounded like a romantic date with her husband, even though they'd be sharing a crowded smelly tent with hundreds of others.

Sam shrugged. He wanted to spend some time alone with his wife but did not argue with her. Laura seemed to find the movies a temporary respite from their situation.

They got their seats early and saved space on the benches for everyone--Three-months-pregnant Elsa (who had seen the movie five times long before the new Ice Age began) and Jeremy arrived first. J.D., Brian and Luther walked in from the barracks a little after the movie started. Luther looked very sad. His beloved dog Buddha had died a few weeks earlier of old age. J.D. didn't look much happier.

Laura hugged the other men hello. Her kindness seemed to cheer up both J.D. and Luther a little.

"Have you seen this movie? I haven't," Laura asked of no one in particular.

"It puts the Ewing family of 'Dallas' to shame," Elsa chimed in.

J.D. had never seen "Giant" either. But after he started watching it, he became intrigued. The film a week earlier had been the 1937 Frank Capra classic "Lost Horizon" and a fortnight ago he had come to the movie tent four nights in a row to watch segments of the 1994 Stephen King miniseries "The Stand." After "Giant" ended three-and-a-half hours later, J.D., still enthralled by the film, went to bed that night with the various plots and settings of his past few viewings swirling in his head. They seemed to coincide with what he had been thinking earlier that day.

Laura also dreamt of the movie that night, not of the plot, but of its setting, of a family living in a house on a ranch in the middle of nowhere.

The next morning J.D. started asking around for a road map, not of Texas, but of Oklahoma. In the "old days" he could have looked up what he wanted on the Internet. But all those websites that would have told him what he needed to know didn't exist anymore, their creators most likely dead, the sites long off-line.

It took him a while to find such a map. He first had to find a family from Oklahoma who had managed to drive a vehicle from that state and then were lucky enough to get themselves and their car across the Mexican border before the borders had closed more than a year ago. Then he had to hope that the family hadn't burned what they considered a now-useless road map to light a fire. Lastly he had to convince the owner to give the map to him. The driver he did locate with a map didn't want to give it to him without some payment in return, but J.D. had nothing to give. The man's wife took pity on J.D., grabbed the map out of her husband's hands and handed it to the boy. J.D. thanked her profusely, but she told him they had no use for it.

Brian found J.D. in their barracks later that day, the map spread out on his cot.

"Oklahoma? You planning on leaving?" Brian meant it as a joke, but then he noticed the look of concentration on J.D.'s face.

"When I was little, before my mother died, we twice visited her uncle's farm in Oklahoma. I think I found on the map where it is. One thing I remember is how it took us hours to get to it because it was just a dirt road. Uncle Cornelius--everyone called him 'Corny'--had running water and electricity, but what I remember was that there was an old water pump in the kitchen and a wood stove and a huge fireplace in the parlor and he even had an old outhouse in the back."

Brian's eyes were wide. "You want to go there, don't you," he said softly. It wasn't a question, just a statement of surprise.

"I think so. I can't stay here forever," J.D. paused, and then added slowly, "and neither can you or any of the rest of us."

"Are you asking me if I want to join you?" Brian asked.

"If you want to."

Brian didn't say anything in response. But he slowly nodded his head, and then he grinned.

Sam saw Brian and J.D. a few days later. They said hello to him but they seemed busy and didn't linger to talk. Now Sam was suspicious. There wasn't much to occupy the young men in the camps which was why so many of them had left already. So why did his two friends look so preoccupied?

"You wanna tell me what's going on?" Sam caught up to them. Now the other two really did look guilty.

J.D. sighed. He seemed a little self-conscious. Brian had kept his idea secret, but now J.D. was about to go public with it. He hoped no one thought he was crazy. "I once offered you two and Laura a place to stay for the night just before the flooding started. I know that that....ended....disastrously."

"Yeah, so?" Sam asked, a little confused. He really didn't like to talk about that time of his life.

"J.D. has another idea of where to go," Brian replied. "But we hope that this time it doesn't end as 'screwed up', to put it lightly, as last time."

"What do you mean, 'another idea'?"

"May Brian and I come talk to you--I mean you and Laura?" J.D. asked.

It dawned on Sam what J.D. was hinting. "Are you two planning on leaving the camp?" Sam asked. He was suddenly envious.

J.D. looked at Brian for confirmation, and then nodded his head in Sam's direction. There was a long pause, and at last J.D. asked, a little huskily, "Did you want to come with us?"


	2. Uncle Corny's Place

Uncle Corny's Place

"Absolutely not!" was Professor Jack Hall's response upon hearing of the outrageous request of his son and daughter-in-law and their closest friends. "You'd all be dead within a month."

Sam was being visited by his parents, Jack and Lucy Hall, and his foster brother, Peter, who had come up to Nuevo Laredo from Mexico City. Professor and Dr. Hall had thought they would be making last-minute plans with their son and daughter-in-law about moving to Houston, but instead were dumfounded when Sam told them he'd changed his mind.

It was a week after J.D. and Brian had sat down with Sam and Laura with his wild idea of moving to an abandoned farm in Oklahoma. J.D. knew that a group of them would have to go since the responsibilities would be far too many for just J.D. and Brian. Laura had immediately recruited Jeremy and Elsa, and Brian suggested Luther since he had nowhere else to go and seemed so lost without Buddha.

"Professor, I've been thinking about this for days," J.D. said after his long speech, which he had practiced most of the day. "Uncle Corny's place was a frame house built in the 1920s, and it's two-and-half-stories. In fact, I think he added on to it after he bought it. There's a barn and garage and, like I said before, an outhouse and a wood burning stove and a huge fireplace and a water pump. There's room for all of us."

"And what will you eat? What if one of you gets hurt or ill? What if there are too many blizzards, or God forbid, a tornado?" demanded Jack. "That's just for starters. And how do you propose to get there?"

"Maybe we could borrow one of the Jeeps..." Sam started to say helpfully, but Jack waved him off.

"We've got comfortable accommodations set aside for you in Houston," Jack said pointedly to Sam. "And you two," Jack said loudly, turning to face Jeremy and Elsa, "you're old enough to know better. I was under the impression you were headed to Memphis."

"Jack, you're arguing with everyone again," Lucy interrupted.

"Please, just let us finish," Sam started to plead.

Lucy nodded. "J.D., go ahead and tell us about your uncle's place.  
Can you tell me more about it and are you sure about where it is?"

"Cornelius Jenkins was my mother's father's younger brother. He never married. When he died the property was passed on to my mother--not Cindy--my mother Francis. Since I'm her only survivor the property is mine anyway. I visited there twice when I was a little boy.

"Where is it?"

"It's west of a town called Lawton, in a valley surrounded by mountains. They're not really mountains, just high hills."

"Do you remember what Uncle Corny raised?" Lucy asked.

"Raised?"

"A crop? Cattle? Dairy cows or horses?"

J.D. thought for a few moments. Lucy could almost see the images of J.D.'s memories going through his brain as he tried to recall what his uncle's property looked like.

"Wheat," J.D. said finally. "I don't know how many acres. He had a red plum tree in front and I remember going outside and picking up the plums off the ground and eating them. He had a vegetable garden in the back. And I remember my mother talking about how when she was little, she used to pick blackberries. But she never let me go back to where they were because the brambles had gotten too thick after she grew up."

"Probably winter wheat," mused Jack. He looked over the group in front of them, trying to make each of them cringe. "Do any of you know anything at all about growing wheat?" No one answered. He looked the longest at Sam and Sam began to sink down into his chair. J.D. finally shook his head no.

"Professor Hall, believe it or not, I do know about growing vegetables," Elsa said to him. It was the first time she'd spoken all evening, except for when she'd said hello. Jack Hall always intimidated her.

J.D. nodded in agreement. "She told me about this months ago. It's why I suggested she come along."

Elsa began, "My parents had a side business outside of their store in New York. I'm not from New York City originally, but a little town farther north. They had a large garden and sold vegetables on a roadside stand. I've been working in a garden for as long as I can remember. Canning, too."

Jeremy looked at his wife in amazement. "Canning? You never told me that!"

"You never asked!" Elsa answered teasingly. "But then I guess I hadn't thought about it until recently."

"Why don't you want to go to Memphis?" Jack reminded her. "What about your family?"

"I love my cousins, but there's too many of them already. Jeremy and the baby and I would just be more mouths to feed."

"So you've got vegetables and fruit," Lucy said, warming to this ridiculous idea. "We'll talk about the wheat later. What about rebuilding the place? I'm sure by now it needs major repair work."

"Hey, what about Judith Braun..." Luther started to say.

"The librarian?" Jack asked incredulously.

"No, I mean her new boyfriend. Ask them if they'll come along."

"Judith has a boyfriend?" Sam, Brian and J.D. asked in unison.

"Man, you guys don't know anything," Laura groaned. "She's been seeing Fred Armand for weeks."

"That dumb surfer from California?" Sam rolled his eyes. "He's half her age!"

"He's not dumb!" Laura answered, her voice raised defensively. "You're just jealous because he's so cute. He's a handyman."

"Yeah, I bet his hands go a lot of places," Jeremy said slyly, at which point Elsa knocked him on his shoulder. Jeremy shut up.

"He's really very nice," Lucy added. "I've met him too." Jack was more annoyed than ever now because of Lucy's comment.

"Do you think they'd join us?" Brian asked.

"Judith would, if Fred came with her," said Elsa. "I wonder if we could convince him....And I don't want to hear any more cracks from you men about surfers."

"Yes, ma'am," her husband muttered. Elsa just glared at him. She yawned unexpectedly. Since she became pregnant, she wanted to go to bed early, evening if it were only a cot in a warehouse.

Lucy, watching Elsa, announced that this meeting was over. Jack said something about "reconvening" tomorrow night, a term which Laura found amusing but J.D. thought was a bit insulting. They weren't planning the invasion of Normandy!

They all came back to the Hall place the next night. This time, Judith came as well, and introduced her young male friend Fred to Jack, Sam, Brian and J.D. None of them could figure out the attraction between the two. But Jack, of all people, warmed to Fred immediately. The Californian, with his shaggy blond hair and broad shoulders, may have looked none too bright, but he went into elaborate detail about houses he had worked on, his face lighting up as he proudly spoke of ways he had found to make repairs. The other men in the room pretended not to be impressed, but they were.

"What did you think of this idea of theirs?" Lucy asked Judith. "I'm amazed you're interested in going along with it."

"Oh, I think it's wonderful. I'm just flattered that J.D. thought to ask us," Judith answered. "Fred," she put her arm around his waist, "likes the idea too, obviously." Fred just smiled. "I think it's time all of us started going home...even if home is someplace new."

Sam fought to keep from snickering. Although he liked Judith, he always had thought she was just an "old maid librarian." It had never occurred to him that a middle-aged prematurely gray-haired woman might be interested in a younger man. But on the other hand, Jeremy Bernard, the former library computer technician, was at least 15 years older than his wife Elsa MacDonald.

Another surprise came from the mouth of young Peter, who had been listening intently in the corner both nights to this conversation. Lucy was shocked when her foster son, now nearly 12 years old, asked, "Can I come too?"

Lucy's eyes widened in horror. Yes, Peter was recovered from his cancer, his hair grown back dark and curly, his skin lightly tanned. Like so many others who were seriously ill who had arrived at the camps more than a year ago, he was better. True, there had been many deaths in the camp, from pneumonia, malaria, heart attacks, suicide, an occasional fight to the death, and some from sheer loneliness, but hundreds of others who had come there suffering from long-term illness had found themselves better. Few people in the camps had cancer, Alzheimer's or AIDS. Maybe it was the extraordinarily clean air. It was as if God, or Mother Nature, or fate, or whomever, had decided to atone for all the deaths in the storm and allow those who would have otherwise died to get well. Peter was one of them.

"Peter, sweetie, I know you're lots better, but I couldn't let you go there. I still need to monitor you," Lucy reminded him.

"But you'll be so busy setting up everything at the hospital in Houston that you wouldn't want to have to take care of me too," Peter answered.

Lucy didn't know what to say to that. Although she'd never said such a thing to Peter, it was true. President Becker had personally asked her to take over the pediatric wing of a public hospital in Houston. The facility was going to have to be reopened quickly. The building was there, but it had been unoccupied since the evacuation and needed many, many repairs. Lucy wasn't even sure if the place had running water yet.

"Maria can take care of me," Peter continued, mistaking his foster mother's silence for approval.

"Maria? Why Maria? She's going to Houston with us!"

"She doesn't want to go there either."

"Peter, who told you that?"

"Nobody. I guessed it."

Maria Hamilton had been the pediatric unit's head nurse at the hospital in Washington where Lucy had worked prior to the superstorms. She too had followed Lucy to Mexico City. Maria had been fortunate to be reunited with her grown daughter and her family and was living with them when she wasn't assisting Lucy and the other health care workers with the thousands of patients from America and Mexico. Maria hadn't complained, but now Lucy realized that Maria was probably suffering from exhaustion and burnout. She'd come close to that situation herself several times recently. Lucy wondered if Maria wanted to retire.

Lucy still didn't know what to say to her son's astute comments. Peter took it as permission to keep talking.

"Professor, you asked last night what would happen if someone became ill on J.D.'s uncle's farm. Well, Maria could take care of us!"

Peter didn't realize the impact his statement had made. J.D. and Sam both started talking to Jack, saying what a great idea it was. Jack, still irritated, stood up and waved his arms, bellowing "time out!"

"This gets more preposterous the more I listen to it!" he yelled. "You don't know anything about physical labor or farming or anything related to it. Most of you are just children!"

Now Sam stood up to face Jack, just as annoyed as his father. "First of all, Dad, none of us has been children since the superstorms. Not even Peter. And I know what you're hinting--that we're all just a bunch of nerds who only know things from books. Well, none of us has been a nerd for a long time either. And we can learn what we have to. As you can see, we've already figured out ways to handle some of the problems that might come up in Oklahoma. Give us a chance to figure out the rest."

Jack closed his eyes, then nodded his head. "All right. You've all got some major work ahead of you, if you're serious about this. I figure you've got two months to get ready. You will all need to start early tomorrow morning and figure out the logistics of this crazy thing."

For a moment there was silence. Then everyone realized that Jack had given his permission for his son, daughter-in-law and their friends to make an expedition to Oklahoma.

J.D. was the first to speak. "Sir, where do you come up with two months?" he inquired.

"It's the middle of February now. You'll want to get to Corny's farm at the end of April at the latest. Although it may not seem like it because there'll still be lots of snow on the ground, it'll be spring. You'll need to round up tools, supplies, food, and most importantly, seed, because you're going to have to plant as soon as the ground is dry enough. You're going to spend the entire summer fixing up the place, hunting, fishing, growing vegetables, even seeing if you've got neighbors. It'll be a very short summer and a VERY long winter. IF you make it through that first winter. You'll be on your own, completely cut off.

"Are you still sure you want to do this?"

J.D. looked around the room, his eyes last stopping on Sam and Laura. Laura sighed a little, looked at her husband, and nodded. "Yes," Sam said to J.D., and then J.D. spoke for all of them, "Yes."


	3. The Final Arrangements

The Final Arrangements

Laura got up early the next morning. She and her new family had fallen asleep late the night before, and the others weren't awake yet. She knew she had a long list of things to write down, the first of many lists. But before she did that, she had two other people to talk to. No one had mentioned them last night, but Laura had been thinking about them since J.D. had first spoken to her and Sam last week.

These two others were a mother and daughter that Laura thought should come with them to Oklahoma. This little family was alone in Mexico, hampered by the problem of speaking neither English nor Spanish, although both of them were learning both languages. They were refugees from French Senegal in Africa, and Laura had come to love them dearly.

Their names were Jama and Binata Diagne, and they had been visiting New York when the super blizzard arrived. They had been trapped in the New York Public Library with Laura, Sam and the others. Jama and Binata had been somewhat dependent on Laura because she was the only other person in the group who spoke French.

Jama had been visiting New York that fateful November week when the world seemed to come to an end. Her husband had died a year before, and she had decided it was time to finally achieve her dream of visiting America. What a decision that had been! Jama and Binata had never been able to return home. Instead they'd been brought to Mexico with Laura and the others from the library.

It was partly because of the Diagnes that Laura and Sam were in Nuevo Laredo and not with his parents in Mexico City. After their rescue from Manhattan, the helicopter pilots that had picked them up flew to the camps just across from Texas, where they landed for fuel. The pilots had been told to bring Jack and his assistant Jason, and Sam, Brian and Laura to Mexico City, but were not told where the other library survivors were to go. Laura felt responsible for Jama and Binata, and refused to leave them. Sam then refused to leave Laura behind, and so he and Brian stayed as well. Jack was extremely displeased, but it was obvious that this motley assortment of people seemed to think Sam was their leader. Reluctantly, Jack and Jason climbed aboard the copter alone and left for the Mexican capital.

For 15 months, Binata and Jama had suffered even more than many others in the camps. They knew little English and faced prejudice from both the Mexicans and the Americans. Jama gradually had come to the realization that even if they could go back to Senegal, her family was probably long dead. She quietly mourned for her lost life.

Jama was always the first one up in her barracks. She and Binata found it easier not to have to compete with everyone else in the lines for the restrooms, showers and mess hall, with the threat of harassment. So they were already headed down the road to the women's facilities when Laura caught up with them.

The woman could only hug Laura when Laura asked if she wished to join she and Sam on their journey. "Yes, I will come with you," Jama said immediately, in stilted English. There was no hesitation in her voice whatsoever. Little Binata, now 8 years old, was excited. At last, they would get to see more of America!

Jack counted heads that afternoon at Sam's apartment. Not including he and Lucy, there were 13, and one "on the way": Binata, Brian, Elsa, Fred, Jama, J.D., Jeremy, Judith, Laura, Luther, Maria, Peter and of course, Sam.

"Babes in the woods," he muttered. But he did not say any of his reservations out loud.

Lucy noted that Binata and Peter, the only youngsters, were already talking. They'd never met before, but months ago Lucy had asked Peter to write to the little girl a few times, much to Binata's delight.

Over the next few weeks the two younger survivors would develop a patois that Sam nicknamed "Sprengch," a pidgin of Peter's English, Binata's native French and the Mexican Spanish they had learned in the past year. Laura, who had a gift for languages, came to understand their private conversations and later chimed in often. To the rest of them, however, it was usually incomprehensible.

"You still have several major problems to solve," Jack reminded them all. "Sowing and harvesting wheat is one of them. You'll need to locate a tractor and a plow, not to mention the gas to run it. Then you'll have to learn how to grind the wheat into flour."

"You'll need to find some mode of transportation. I hope you can find an abandoned pickup truck that you can jump-start. Again, you'll need stores of gas to keep it running, not including the maintenance."

"Third, you won't be able to survive on Elsa's vegetables alone. You'll need meat of some sort. I know some of you probably can fish, but you're going to have to find a way to hunt or trap animals for food or fur. Or maybe you can find chickens to raise."

"There are fishing poles at Uncle Corny's," J.D. answered him. "He took me fishing several times. He showed me the difference between using flies and worms."

"Did he show you how to clean and cook the fish?"

"Yes. I thought it was gross, though."

"Tough luck. You'll need to do it on a regular basis. Have any of gone hunting?"

For a moment there was silence. Then Luther answered, to everyone's surprise, "It's been years. I used to go all the time with my dad and uncle. They made me help skin the deer and cure the meat. I hated it."

"Would you be willing to try again?" J.D. asked.

"For all of you, yes." Luther smiled. Jack smiled back. At least there was one trained person going where they were going!

The next six weeks were very busy. The logistics of planning this move were more than any of them had thought it would be. Just convincing the local National Guard contingent to loan a truck and two Guards for a week in April took Jack several days in Mexico City with the head of the Guard.

The major finally relented when Jack announced that he and Lucy would be headed to Houston after dropping off the others in Oklahoma. Jack also reminded the Guardsman that President Becker owed him a favor. Jack knew that Becker secretly felt guilty about not listening to him before the storms hit, and so the President himself permitted the loan of the vehicle. (Jack knew he'd have to pay his boss back eventually.)

Jack decided this trip to Corny's was as good a time as any to get to Houston, and so decided to hitch a ride. Besides, this would be a way to make sure his son and his friends would at least get to their destination.

Lucy went shopping in the capital, buying work clothes and new shoes for everyone, seed, several reference manuals covering various topics, a hunting rifle with ammunition (Laura and Lucy both shuddered at the sight of it), and one beautifully made bow with a quiver. Dr. Hall had a little money which she had acquired by being one of the best known American doctors in town, but the cash was gone by the end of several days of shopping.

Then two American soldiers had driven Jack, Lucy, Peter and Maria in a truck from Mexico City to Nuevo Laredo. Lucy and Maria recognized the truck from riding in it a year earlier when they'd moved to Mexico City. The physician, nurse and patient originally had been brought from the States to Mexico and been placed in a barracks for pediatric patients in Matamoros. But then Lucy and Jack wanted to try to reconcile their marriage. Meanwhile, Peter had been showing signs of remission, and was healthier every day. So the three headed south, where Maria was reunited with her own family and Lucy brought Peter home with her.

It was now early April, and they were all tired of making lists and preparations. Luther privately thought they were creating more work than necessary for themselves. He was used to owning nothing and getting by day to day, and couldn't see why the others had to be so over-prepared. Besides, he'd seen plenty of others leaving the camps and heading north recently, and they'd gone with far fewer supplies than this group did. But on the other hand, no one seemed to ever hear from these folks again, and no one knew if they ever reached their destinations.

Two days before departure day, they all met again at Sam's and Laura's little apartment. Another couple, and their three children, had already made arrangements to move into the small room once the two left.

Jack repeated his question one more time: "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Look at it this way, Dad," Sam reassured him. "We'll give it a year. I promise you we'll survive. If we really, really don't like it, we'll come back."

"That's just it, Sam," Jack said with finality. "You can't come back."


	4. The Journey

The Journey

There was stunned silence, until Sam asked, a little shakily, "What do you mean 'we can't come back'?"

"I mean you won't be able to return to the camps in Mexico," Jack answered. "You know the Mexican government closed its country's borders again. It can't make an exception, even for you, even though I work for the President. The camps simply can't support any more Americans.

"Now don't panic," he continued. "Once you cross over into America, you are free to go wherever you want. If you don't like farm living, you can quit any time. But I want to warn you, by that time you may not want to come to Houston."

"Why wouldn't we want to come to Houston later?" Judith asked.

"President Becker estimates at least 25 million Americans still survive in the Southern states, here in the camps in Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros, and a few in the North. More and more of them are already pouring into Houston because the government will be there, and some of the city's infrastructure survives. It was far enough south that a lot of the housing still remains. It's now America's largest city. It was a big town before the Ice Age, but there probably won't be room for everyone, including you in a few months.

"So I'm asking all of you one last time--do you really want to do this?"

"Don't, Jack," Lucy said softly. "I agree with them. Houston won't be a pleasant place with so many people needing so much."

She walked over to her son put her arms around him. Lucy was blinking back tears. "I want to go with you," she said, her voice shaky.

"The hospital needs you," Sam croaked. "Please, Mom, don't make this any harder!"

"I lost you once! I thought I could cope with losing you again!"

That comment made Sam smile. "Good grief, you're not losing us! You know perfectly well where we will be. And believe it or not, we'll want to come visit you some time."

"I promise I'll take good care of him," Laura laughed to her mother-in-law.

"But what if...." Lucy started to ask.

"No more 'what if's," Sam said. "We'll figure out the answers. Remember, we were all supposed to be 'the brains' at one time!"

Back in March, Lucy had thought there was no good day in April to leave Nuevo Laredo. All of the dates had bad omens related to them: the Crucifixion, the Titanic sinking, President Lincoln being assassinated, the Columbine shootings, Apollo 13, and she didn't even want to think about the Murrah Building. It seemed like so many horrible things had happened in a two-week time span. Sam and J.D. decided for her: April 15. Income Tax Day didn't exist anymore, so why think that that date was ominous?

They spent April 13 and 14 packing. They were ready to leave at dawn on the 15th.

It was a large truck, and three sat in front--two Guardsmen, and Elsa, who would be slightly more comfortable up there. Most of the others sat uncomfortably in the back with all their supplies. A Jeep accompanied them, driven by a Guard and a Secret Service agent who were protecting Jack and Lucy. The Halls were squeezed in the back seat with some of Jack's equipment, including a short wave radio.

They planned to follow the old interstate system. At first, it was heavily traveled, with an assortment of traffic--military vehicles, cars that had managed to survive the long winter, a few horse- or -mule-drawn wagons, and people on foot. But as they got deeper into Texas, the number of people they saw lessened. They had to drive around hundreds of abandoned vehicles, a few with the remains of their passengers still inside.

Sam, Brian and Fred knew what kind of truck they wanted to "borrow"--a huge pickup. Laura secretly thought it was some kind of "guy thing" for the three of them to want such an enormous, noisy vehicle, but she did not argue with them. But such a truck was harder to locate than they had planned. Evidently others before them had had the same idea as Sam, figuring a heavy pickup truck would be better to maneuver in the abandoned countryside than a minivan or car.

They stopped for the night after riding for most of a very long day. They had come to what until a few years ago had been a hamlet; now it was a ghost town. Rather than sleep in the open, they went into two of the houses and slept on the couches or on the floor. It was Fred who went down into the basement of one of the houses and walked out through the lower level garage in the back, its driveway hidden from the street. In the driveway was their dream vehicle, a Ford 150 extended cab pickup truck, mired in two feet of frozen mud, only the tops of its tires showing. He opened the hood and smiled when he saw a Sears DieHard battery. Fred returned upstairs, went into the kitchen, and located a set of spare car keys hanging next to the long-useless telephone.

They awoke early the next morning. Not wanting to waste all their energy trying to get the vehicle on the street if it wouldn't start, one of the Guard drove the Jeep around back and hooked up the battery cables to jumpstart the truck. Meanwhile, Fred, Luther and Jack dug a hole in the mud to get the tailpipe exposed. Fortunately, the mud was still half-frozen, so it piled easily and didn't ooze back into the space they'd created.

Their audience clapped when, after a few minutes, the truck's engine started. Then Jack gave his classic "if looks could kill" glare to all of his watchers, announcing, "If you really want this thing you're gonna have to spend the day digging it out. All of you."

The task took much of the afternoon. The group absconded with as many shovels as they could find in the neighboring buildings. At first it was easy to move the mud, but it was frozen a few inches down and digging was much harder. They all had sore shoulders and backs by the end of the day. Fred was worried that the tires might be flat from sitting in one place for so long, but the mud slide had actually supported the truck a little and the tires were still semi-inflated.

It was just before dark that Fred got into what he now considered "his" truck and maneuvered it out of the driveway and onto the street. He had found a tire pump in the garage and inflated the tires the rest of the way. He slept in the cab that night, fearfully protective of his new toy.

Filled up with gasoline siphoned from other vehicles in the garages, and some small cupfuls of gas poured out of useless lawnmowers, the three vehicles continued on their journey the next day. Fred and Judith were in the front of the pickup, with a now-much-more-comfortable Elsa between them. Other items they had taken from the houses, including a baby cradle, numerous articles of clothing and a supply of lye soap, were piled in the rear.

The terrain changed the farther they drove north, gradually becoming more hilly. Sam had figured their troop would be alone, but off in the distance they often saw thin lines of smoke, indicating chimneys. One truck did pass them going south. Sam's three vehicles pulled over, as did the other driver's truck. The driver, a teenage boy, got out, his arms raised. He looked terrified. "You can have the truck if you want," he said, his voice shaking.

The others were shocked by this statement. "We don't want your truck!," Jack told him. "We're not gonna harm you."

The boy still looked wary, but he put his arms down.

"Are people stealing vehicles?" Jack's agent asked.

"Not really," was the answer. "You just scared me, that's all. I haven't seen a large group like you since, well, before...." the boy's voice trailed off.

"Are you alone?" Lucy asked gently.

"No, my family is alive. They..." He started to point, then seemed to think better of it, not wanting strangers to know where his parents lived.

Jack nodded. "All right, we'll be on our way. Have you been much further north? How are the roads?"

"They're clear!" The others could all hear the pride in his voice. "I spent last summer moving vehicles and debris off to the side of the roads. I want to do it again this year--I'm just seeing what needs to be done."

"You're doing this yourself?" Jack asked, surprised.

The boy nodded. "I got bored last year. My dad was trying to figure out last year how to run the ranch without a lot of supplies. My mom and older sisters and brother-in-law helped him, but I seemed to get in the way. So I decided to do this instead."

Jack came over and shook the adolescent's hand. "Well, we thank you, and the President thanks you." Jack asked the boy for his name and address, which he gave, a little reluctantly. The boy's family was surprised when, six months later, they received a thank-you note from the new White House, signed by President Becker.

It took five long bumpy uncomfortable days to reach Lawton. The town was occupied. They pulled up in front of a building downtown with a hand-painted sign in front of it that read "Lawton Communications Center." A woman, obviously a sheriff's deputy, came out to greet them. She invited them inside, and Jack was delighted with what he saw. The deputy told him that she and others in the town had been gathering up any type of radio equipment they could find. She pointed to what was obviously a deejay's booth, saying that the building had once been a local radio station, and one of the original station employees was in there now. Placed on tables throughout the room was an assortment of short wave radios, a ham radio, two police radios and even an ancient circa 1975 CB that had been removed from a car. All of them seemed to be working.

"We use these radios to communicate periodically with everyone in the vicinity," the deputy told Jack. "We've got them all because everyone seemed to have something different in their own homes. Someone even brought us a telegraph machine, but unfortunately none of us knows how to work it, much less use Morse code." The woman didn't realize that the Secret Service agent was taking notes on her information, which he thought he might need for future reference. The town of Lawtown was surprised when, a month afterward, a package came from Houston with complete instructions on sending telegrams.

J.D. decided it was time to speak up. This whole trip had been "his" idea, and they were going to what he thought of as "his" place, and yet Jack and Sam had been dominating every part of the journey. He identified himself as the great-nephew of Cornelius Jenkins. The officer didn't remember him, but the disc jockey did, and started giving directions to the farm.

The deejay had bad news, however. The roads in that direction were badly deteriorated, and one of the bridges over a stream had collapsed. The ice-cold water would be much too deep to cross drive through, and yet not frozen enough to walk over. They'd have to drive miles farther north to find a place to get over it.

But that was the least of their worries. The deejay also informed them that, during a bad thunderstorm the previous summer, lightning had caused fires in the area. They'd all seen smoke in the direction of Corny's, but no one could reach it. No one had gone to see since then if the house was even still standing.

Their shoulders sagging, their hopes beginning to lessen, they got back into their vehicles and drove off. J.D. didn't want to admit he might have sent them all on a useless journey.

Suppose nothing was left of the house or its outbuildings?


	5. Arriving at Their New Home

Arriving at Their New Home

It had taken the three vehicles four hours to detour around the flooded creek and drive--very slowly--over the long-unused roadways. In the "old days" it was a 40-minute drive from Lawton to the Jenkins home. The drivers had to maneuver around two landslides where the hills had collapsed completely. Several of the group had said silent prayers when they came across a car on its side at the bottom of a ditch. Its long-dead occupants, a small family, had been trying to escape south to Mexico and never made it.

According to the deejay's directions, their destination was actually in a small valley surrounded by hills. He even jokingly said that years ago that people referred to the site as a "holler." Once the man had mentioned that, J.D. realized that he did remember the hills outside his uncle's house.

Laura hadn't known what to expect when J.D. had described Cornelius Jenkins' homestead to her and the others. She had secretly envisioned Tara, or Southfork, or the huge Victorian frame house in "Giant," or even the Ponderosa or the Waltons' farmhouse. But she didn't envision to what they drove up. Laura later supposed that J.D., as a child, had viewed the place as much bigger than it actually was.

True, it was technically a two-and-half-story L-shaped frame home with wood siding. But the third floor was just an attic--there weren't even windows, just vents. The "addition" that J.D. had mentioned was simply another room added in the 1970s, probably an office, off the kitchen. Part of the wraparound porch was caved in. The exterior obviously hadn't been painted since long before Cornelius died, and the cheery yellow paint that J.D. had remembered was faded and peeling. Several windows were broken.

The barn's roof had collapsed, but the floor was still there. J.D. figured it could be torn down eventually and the lumber used for either another project or for firewood. He had a vague memory of being told by Uncle Cornelius not to go into the barn, although he couldn't remember why. The vegetable garden was a hopeless mess of frozen mud, slush and weeds from previous summers. The infamous outhouse had fallen over completely. What had been a pretty brook along the edges of the back yard during J.D.'s childhood was now a fast-running stream with its edges threatening to cave in.

But...

Cornelius' wise heirs had covered all the furniture inside with sheets after his death. Although the sheets, the baseboards, the windowsills, the mantel, the kitchen appliances and counter were covered in pre-storm dust, everything looked to be in remarkably usable condition. The stairs going up to the second floor and to the basement were intact, although they were both home to huge dusty cobwebs. Even the pull door with its little steps going up to the attic worked, although it squeaked horribly and the door had to be pried open.

The one thing that really pleased J.D. was that the antique water pump in the kitchen actually functioned. One item that they had brought along with them was a bottle of WD-40, and after considerable spraying of the liquid onto the pump handle, he was able to move it up and down. He gave Peter the job of pumping, and to the boy's joy, after a few minutes some brown muddy ugly water came out. Then Fred took over, pumping harder than ever. It took a while, but the water began to clear. It was bitter tasting well water, and it would have to be boiled, but it was running water. That sight lifted their spirits immensely. Now they wouldn't have to go the stream for water.

Most amazing of all was that the plum tree had somehow survived. There were tiny buds all over its branches. Perhaps its close affinity to the house had protected it a little. The group saw two plumes of smoke--one to the east, the other two the south--indicating they had neighbors. But what cheered Laura and Judith and the others the most was the return of Mother Nature. Yes, there was frozen mud, slush and remnants of snow everywhere. But up against the house were three stubborn small yellow daffodils. The grass in the front yard wasn't dead, only dormant. And there were birds singing everywhere. None of them had realized until now how much they had missed the ultimate sound of spring--robins and sparrows and cardinals communicating with each other. Spring was coming--the humans could even smell it in the air.

During their initial tour of the run-down house, Brian couldn't resist making one snide comment . He raised his right arm over Sam, pretending to hold a butcher knife and squeaking "Eek! Eek! Eek!" like the sound effects in "Psycho." Sam just rolled his eyes and pretended to ignore him, but Laura laughed.

By the end of a quick 10-minute tour of the place, all the rooms were already claimed. Elsa and Jeremy got the large master bedroom on the main floor, with plans to put the baby crib in the corner. Fred and Judith took the other downstairs bedroom. J.D. claimed the "office" off of the kitchen--despite the dark 70s wood paneling that was coming loose from the walls, there was a couch in it long enough to stretch out on, a small closet and an exterior door.

There were three bedrooms upstairs and a large open area at the top of the stairs. The second-floor front room was huge--it had obviously been two bedrooms at one time, but the wall in between had been removed and the large room had been what? a studio? a music room? a small ballroom? J.D. couldn't remember and there were no furnishings in it for clues.

Jama decided for all of them what the room was to be used for. She had originally thought that she would share a room with her daughter, and Maria would share one with Peter, but Jama decided that this would be the combination children's bedroom/playroom for Peter and Binata. Elsa (who had read way too many 19th century novels) was delighted by the thought of a genuine nursery for her baby.

That left two upstairs bedrooms. Jama and Maria took the one, Luther and Brian took the other. But what about Sam and Laura? J.D. went back down into the living room and uncovered the couch. It was a 1970s avocado green, but he remembered something else from his childhood. During one of his visits to his uncle's, he had slept one night in the living room, more as a joke than anything. Yes, the couch was as he recalled--it was a sleep sofa, and he pulled it open, its hinges squealing in protest. The sleeper had hardly ever been used and it still looked fairly new. Sam wasn't too happy, but the living room became his and Laura's domain. At least they had their own fireplace!

Then they all returned to the front yard. Lucy looked satisfied--at least, as satisfied as she could be--she was still worried about leaving all of them, but Jack looked grumpy again. Much to J.D.'s and Sam's annoyance, the professor started barking orders again.

"Your first priority isn't the house or the garden," he reminded them. "It's the outhouse. You need to get the shed propped up again, and you need to make sure the hole is deep enough." (He smirked as he saw the others wrinkling their noses or making faces.) "And you'll eventually have to dig another hole and build another one, because there are so many of you. The bathrooms in the house are just going to be storage closets. One of you is also going to get chamber pot duty."

Lucy walked up to pregnant Elsa. "It's you I'm most concerned about. I know you're going to feel guilty if you don't help out as much as the others, but I want you to take it easy. Women have been having babies outside of hospitals since the beginning of time, but none of you are really prepared for this. I'll be in touch with you and Maria every week, and when it gets closer to the time for the baby to come, I want to hear from you more often than that."

Elsa suddenly looked frightened, and Lucy hugged her. "You'll be all right. All of you will. I know that now." Lucy smiled broadly at everyone, especially at her son, daughter-in-law and foster son. Dr. Hall wasn't worried anymore. This new place had serious flaws, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with lots of time and patience.

There was so much work to be done that none of them knew where to begin. As Jack had advised, the first thing several of them did was to try to prop up the outhouse. The task wasn't as easy as it looked--getting it positioned and stable took longer than they expected. The rest of them spent the next two days going through the house, inventorying everything, cleaning as much as they could (it seemed to Laura that she spent the entire time boiling water), and bringing in their supplies from the vehicles. It was at the end of the second day that Laura finally felt at home. She had cleaned the living room closet and then moved her and Sam's meager sets of clothing into it. There were a few hangers there, and she hung up his other pair of khakis, their T-shirts and their worn wool coats. Putting them on hangers was such a novelty to her that she grinned when she did it. How long had it been since she'd had a chance to actually hang up clothes neatly?

On the third morning, a message came over Jack's short wave radio. It was from the new White House--the City Building in Houston. President Becker had decided he didn't want to chance his Secretary of Climatology and one of Houston's new physicians driving across two states accompanied only by three National Guards and a Secret Service agent. He was sending a helicopter to pick up the Halls later that day.

Lucy had thought they would be staying at least another 24 hours and she was distraught at having to leave early. The helicopter arrived sooner than anyone had expected and suddenly none of them were ready to say goodbye.

As the helicopter came toward them, Sam smirked a little, remembering that he and this same group had waited for this same chopper months ago. He even recognized the pilot when the helicopter landed. But, no, this time the situation was different. Most of them weren't going to board.

To Sam's surprise, Jack didn't walk over to him immediately. Instead, his father first went to Luther and Judith.

"Are you sure you want to watch over all these kids?" he asked the two of them.

"Hey, I'm sure," Luther answered, nodding. "Judy here'll keep them in line."

"You know how librarians are--we can intimidate people when we want to!" Judith responded with a little laugh.

"Just smack 'em if they don't behave!" Jack cracked. He shook Judith's and Luther's hands, then walked over to J.D.

"I, I'm not the best with formal thank you's," Jack told J.D. "But Lucy and I really do appreciate what you're doing. If you need anything, be sure to contact us."

"I will, sir," J.D. said, as Jack shook his hand as well.

"Oh, and I have a housewarming gift for you," Jack said off-handedly. Sam looked up, thinking his father was speaking to him, but Jack was still facing J.D. Jack leaned over and pulled a box out of the paraphernalia he was taking to Houston. It was his short-wave radio, which he handed to J.D. "Sam'll show you how to use it. He used to play with it as a kid."

Sam couldn't figure out why his dad was giving his friend the radio instead of him, but Jack then said to J.D., "Since you're the head of the household now, I figured I'd give this to you." Then Jack looked at his son and said, "Sam, I hope you don't mind."

Sam was too annoyed, and a little envious, to say anything, and just shrugged and shook his head no.

Jack finally came over to his son. Sam wanted to say something to his father, but he never got the opportunity. He and Laura and Peter had already said goodbye to Lucy, who was now in the helicopter. Jack simply lightly hugged Sam and Peter, kissed Laura on the cheek, and then turned away before anyone said anything.

Sam was a little upset that his father hadn't said anything special to him and that the man had on his "mask" again, looking stern. Jack walked away, his face turned, and he didn't look back when he climbed onto the helicopter. Sam never knew that his father was trying hard not to cry.


	6. Idyllic

Idyllic

A week later Elsa asked J.D. a question to which he did not know the answer. The group had already made it a habit to linger at the table after their late supper to discuss anything they needed to know, or had discovered, about the Jenkins property.

"J.D., did your uncle ever name this place?" she asked.

"A name?" he answered, puzzled.

"You know, like Tara, or Biltmore, or something like that," Elsa said.

"Be a long time before this place ever gets to be something like what they were!" Brian said dryly. He and Sam looked at each other. No matter how tired they were, they still never lost their sense of sarcasm.

But J.D. took Elsa's question seriously. "You know, I don't think so. I don't remember hearing anything like that, not that my mother or Corny ever mentioned."

"Well, then, we'll have to come up with something," Judith said brightly.

"Corny's Corners," Fred said. It was the first time he'd spoken all evening.

"No, no, no," Elsa said. "It has to be something appropriate. And it'll have to be something that just...happens."

"You mean, think it up out of the blue?" Luther asked.

"Yes, that's it!" she told him. "One day, one of us will hear or see something...or remember something...and we'll realize that that's what we should name the place."

It was so pleasant to wake up to the sound of birds rather than hearing people talking or yelling outside! It was wonderful to be able to close a door and have some privacy! It was nice not having to wait in line forever to use the commode. Luther even found a feral female very pregnant cat living in the barn, and worried about her safety. He had found a replacement for his beloved Buddha.

And most of all, it felt good to be living a real home again.

But that didn't mean their lives were easy. In fact, they were even more difficult than before. Sam's fingers were constantly tender from his hammer hitting them instead of their intended nail heads. J.D., the former rich kid, had been "volunteered" for chamber pot duty every morning, emptying the pots' contents into the outhouse. The entire group's attempts at foraging into nearby abandoned homesteads had proved fruitless--almost nothing of any real use could be found in them. There was mud everywhere, and all of them were constantly chilly to the point they could see their breath when they got up in the morning. The living room fireplace smoked. The wood stove was either too hot or too cold and was a challenge to cook on, and Laura's and Elsa's first attempt at baking something in the oven turned out to be rock hard and blackened to its core. They discovered the barn wasn't safe to step into--its floor was just as rotten as the roof.

On the other hand, they were all sleeping better than they had since before the storms. Before the new ice age, they would have complained their beds were lumpy or hard, but now the mattresses seemed deep and comfy. There was no shortage of clean water, and the women especially were overjoyed when they were able to take turns heating water, dump it into the main floor bathroom's tub, and actually sit and soak in the tub. One item they had brought back from a neighbor's home was an ancient bottle of Mr. Bubble, and the adults enjoyed using it more than the children did! The overpowering smells and sounds from the refugee camps were far away and quickly forgotten. Despite the hardships, within a few days all 13 of them felt healthier than they had in months.

"It seems idyllic living here," Elsa mused a week after they had moved in. They had already developed a habit of gathering in the living room in front of the fireplace in the evening, just before going to bed. J.D. and Sam had quickly formulated a plan for the short-wave radio--one night J.D. would call Lawton just to check in; the other night Sam or Laura would contact his parents.

"What does 'idyllic' mean?" Peter asked.

"A pleasant, quiet, romantic life in the country, with no worries about the outside world," Elsa answered.

"It won't last, you know," J.D. reminded her.

She wrinkled her nose at him and complained, "Oh, you had to go and ruin the moment for everyone! I just meant that it's good to be here."

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "You're right."

"We are better off here," Sam agreed, but he thought to himself...I think.

A few minutes later they all headed for bed. Jeremy and Elsa talked quietly in their room, although they couldn't see much because she had only one candle flickering on the table. Jeremy got a box from under the bed.

"I thought you unpacked everything earlier!" Elsa said, surprised to see the carton. "Do I get to see what's in it?"

Jeremy looked a little sheepish. "You ought to know what's in here--I brought it with me from New York! I kind of hid it once we got to Nuevo Laredo, because I was afraid someone would steal it. I guess you forgot about it once we got separated at camp. I've been protecting it ever since."

Elsa's eyes widened and she gasped a little. "You brought," she sputtered, "the Gutenberg Bible?"

"I was so afraid no one would ever see it again if I left it at the library, but once we were in Mexico I was afraid I'd be arrested for keeping valuable stolen property, or worse, that someone who didn't know what it was would take it and burn it for fuel. I had to bring it with me.

"Elsa, I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier," Jeremy apologized. "After we started dating I had more important things I wanted to tell you about!"

"That's okay," she smiled, a little flirtatiously. "But," she said, returning her voice to a serious tone, "I would like the others to know about this. Who knows? Judith might like to look through it again."

The next night the couple brought in their prize possession to the living room gathering. Judith immediately recognized it and she blinked back tears as she held it. "I thought this was gone forever," she whispered. "Thank you for taking care of it."

Peter, Fred and Maria did not knowknow whatthe book was that Jeremy held, since they had not been in the library. Peter said, "I can't read it," as Elsa showed him some of the fragile pages.

"It's in German," Elsa explained. "It was printed by a man named Johannes Gutenberg, which is why it is called the Gutenberg Bible. His books were the first books ever printed on a printing press. Laura, I'm curious--can you read German?"

"A little," she started to say, but was interrupted by Peter.

"Johannes Gutenberg is a funny name," he said.

"It's just an old-fashioned German name," Laura explained. "'Johannes' is like our name 'John,' and 'Gutenberg' means, let me think..it translates to 'good mountain'...That's it!" she squealed.

"What's 'it'?" her husband Sam asked, raising his eyebrows.

J.D. did a double take, comprehending Laura's excitement. "It's what we'll call this place," he said. Laura nodded eagerly. "It IS a valley surrounded by hills, and well, like the book, it is a 'first', a place to start over."

"Seems a little melodramatic to me," Brian answered. "But it's your property, so you can call it what you want!


	7. Everybody Hates Raymond

Everybody Hates Raymond

It was not, however, idyllic in the new American capital of Houston, as Jack and Lucy immediately discovered.

Soon after their helicopter landed, and they were driven to their new apartment, Jack was summoned to the City Building--his boss's new home.

Dr. Adrian Hall and then-U.S. Vice President Raymond Becker had despised each other from the moment they had met two years earlier. But to Professor Jack Hall's surprise, when Becker became President, one of his first official duties was to create a new Cabinet position, Secretary of Climatology, and ask Jack to take the job. Jack knew it was because of his own sudden popularity among the public--some folks, he realized, considered him some sort of psychic, able to predict the weather--and not because Becker had suddenly decided to take a liking to his nemesis.

Over the past months, Jack had begun to develop a grudging respect for the man. Becker had changed his mind on many ideas regarding the environment, and had been willing to listen to his new Secretary. But those occasions had been always been in meetings with the rest of the Cabinet. Never one-on-one, and Jack was nervous about this personal interview.

After Jack took a quick shower at their place, Lucy helped him get dressed in his only remaining suit--now well-worn--and had to remind him to shave. Then a government car took him to the City Building.

He stood outside the new Oval Office--could they still call it that, since it was just a rectangle?--and waited for the door to open. An assistant let him in, and then Jack was alone with the President.

"I wish to apologize for the mess," Becker said, surprising Jack with such an informal comment. "We're all still moving in."

"Yes, sir, I understand completely," Jack said, for once sympathizing with the man. "Lucy and I are just getting started ourselves." Becker waved for him to sit down on the couch. Then the President also sat down next to him, and looked at Jack silently.

"Did you need to discuss something in particular with me, sir?" Jack asked, getting nervous now. He watched as Becker sighed. The man had aged a lot in the past two years, but, Jack noticed, his face had lost its hard edge. It dawned on the professor that this man was probably very lonely.

"How are you and your family?" Becker asked, again surprising Jack. "Your son and his friends--how is their new place?"

"I think it will work out, sir, but it's gonna, I mean, it's going to take all summer for them to prepare for next winter."

"That's what I needed to hear, Jack, that people are trying to start their lives again. I hope that we--all of us--can get the United States--if we can still call it that--back on its feet," Becker laughed a little as he added, "God, I feel like FDR promising that 'prosperity is just around the corner.'"

"Yes, sir," Jack said, still not knowing what this meeting was for.

"I envy your son and his friends," Becker said after a few more moments. "They're safe where they are--well, relatively speaking--they are. I know you haven't been here in Houston all that long, and you don't know how bad it is.

"We're a third world country now, Professor. Our enemies are gloating and our allies don't know how to help us, especially since most of them are in the same predicament we are. But politics--that's only half of it. You haven't seen what Houston and its suburbs are like out there. Every home that was still standing--even the littlest bungalows--are overflowing with families living in them, and many still don't have running water or electricity. There are hundreds of thousands more living in cars or tents or cardboard boxes. It's the same in Miami, Atlanta, New Orleans and San Diego. Hardly anyone lives in Phoenix or Los Angeles because there's so little running water available.

"The ironic thing is, just a few hundred miles north, everything IS under water. Frozen water, and we can't do anything about it!" Becker's voice suddenly cracked, and he looked away from Jack, out the window. The President's shoulders shook once, as Jack realized with horror that the man was near tears.

He asked, "Mr. President?" Jack waited a few moments, then asked again, a little awkwardly, a little hesitantly, "Raymond? Are you all right?"

Raymond shook his head a little, wiped his hand over his face, and nodded. Jack, trying to hide his own embarrassment, didn't look directly at Raymond as he handed him a tissue from a box on the table.

"I'm sorry, Jack, that was uncalled for. I..."

"Sir, you are under tremendous pressure. It could have happened to anyone."

"What I find so ironic," Raymond began again, "is that even though everyone wants me to DO SOMETHING," he said it emphatically, "they all still hate me. I know you do! Everyone blames me for what has happened."

"Sir, first of all," said Jack, not sure how to state what he was going to say, "I don't, I don't hate you. Not anymore, anyway." To his surprise, Becker nodded and smiled a little, obviously relieved to hear it. "And it's not your fault. It's all our, I mean, it's everybody's fault. We all had a hand in it, and we've paid a price for it." Now Jack knew what Becker wanted to talk about, and, already, Jack was formulating in his head what he himself would say.

"I think we've paid our price, to God, Mother Nature, fate, whatever you want to call it," Jack stated. "And now we need to find a way to prevent this from happening again."

"That's the environmentalist in you talking, Jack," Raymond said. Jack felt his shoulders tensing in irritation but Raymond quickly waved his hand and said, somewhat teasingly, "Let me finish!"

"And, now, the conservative businessman in me that you hate so much is going to talk," Raymond said, with an odd bit of pride. "Late last night, in bed--don't laugh--people think things up in bed all the time--I had an idea. It's kind of--well, it might be completely unworkable, but on the other hand, I thought that it could be something you could quite possibly make work!"

Jack looked at Raymond expectantly, waiting for the man to continue.

"The Southern hemisphere has always been drier than the Northern hemisphere. It's gotten even worse in the past two years."

"Because so much of Earth's water is now concentrated, frozen solid, up here," Jack finished Raymond's sentence for him.The Presidentdidn't get upset, he just nodded. "They've got dry land and warmer air and livestock and a greater amount of open spaces than we do."

"A lot of Americans--and Europeans and Russians and Chinese--are migrating there already. But what the immigrants are discovering is what the folks who live there already know--there's not always enough water for their personal use, much less their livestock or crops."

"While we've got more than enough water," Jack concluded. "We just need to find a way to make it potable and usable. That's what you brought me here for."

For the first time in months, Jack felt hope, and he grinned a little at President Becker. Jack was surprised to realize he felt almost happy when Becker smiled too.

Unfortunately, Dr. Lucy Hall's first day on her job did not go as well as Jack's did. There were no employee or staff offices anymore--they were all filled with patients. What hospital staff there was had to store supplies and patient records in closets and even restrooms. Lucy's "office" turned out to be an out-of-the-way bathroom that hadn't been cleaned since the storm. She discovered it was her responsibility to clean it--if she would ever have the time.

Lucy was quickly introduced to a number of physicians and nurses in the pediatric wing, not really remembering any of their names or departments. Then she finally started walking through the corridors. There were young patients and families in beds in the rooms, and some were sitting or lying on the hallway floors. These people--both the patients and the staff--were now her responsibility. She was suddenly overwhelmed--and terrified. She tried to ignore her pounding heart as she began to talk to the nurses--no, they were now "her" nurses--to learn more about what needed to be done that day.

Jack was waiting for her at their apartment that night. It was past 10 p.m., and he was getting worried. Lucy's mode of transportation was one of the city buses, which were crowded and getting more run-down each week, and then she still had to walk half a block home. Jack had said he'd meet her at the bus stop, but she told him that morning to let her walk the way alone. He ran to the door when he heard her coming in, wanting desperately to talk to her about his morning.

"I thought I was going to be the one who had the bad day," Jack said to Lucy. "It looks like yours was worse. Honey, you, are you all right?"

She nodded her head, too tired for the moment to answer. "I'll tell you about it in a little bit," Lucy replied. "Just let me rest for a moment." She went to the bathroom, showered, and got ready for bed. She came back out into the living room, where Jack had brought her a sandwich and chips--typical guy meal, she thought--and sat down. It was her last thought. Jack attempted to hand her the sandwich, but as he looked up he noticed that his wife had already falled asleep, sitting up.

Jack decided to wait until morning to tell her about his meeting with the President.


End file.
